Improved railway-chairs



if E* UNITED STATES PATENT OEEICE.

THOMAS WHITTEMORE, OF OAMBRIDGEPORT, MASSACHUSETTS, ASSIGNOR TO EDMUND G. LUCAS, OF SAME PLAGE.

IMPROVED RAILWAY-CHAIRS.

'Specification forming part of Let-ters Patent No. 58,184,1dated September 18, 1866.

To all whom fit may concern:

Be it known that I, THOMAS WEiTTEMoEE, of Oambridgeport, in the county oi Middlesex and State of Massachusetts, have invented an Improved Railway-Chair, which I term the Griping-Ohair, from the fact that when in use it gripes and holds firmly the rail or rails; and I do hereby declare the saine to be fully described in the following specification, and represented in the accompanying drawings, of whichi Figure l is a top view, and Fig. 2 a transverse section, of the said chair as applied to two rails at their junction or abutting ends.

The said chair is composed. of two wedged jaws and a wedge-socketed base-plate, and is designed specially for supporting two rails at their abutting ends.

In the drawings, A and B are portions of two rails of a railway, they being arranged end to end, as they are in a track. They extend into the two jaws O C, each of which is formed to go both underneath and over the next adjacent base-Harige a t of the two rails.

Each jaw hase a wedge or trapezoidal shaped extension, D, projecting downfrom it and into a correspondingly-shaped recess or socket, E, made in the base-plate F in manner as represented. Both the j aws and the base-plate have holes made down through them for reception of spikes G G G G, for securing the chair to a sleeper or other proper part of the road-bed.

The advantage of this chair is that when the spikes are driven so as to force the wedged jaws downward, these jaws, by means of the wed ges and the trapezoidal socket of the baseplate, will be crowded inward toward the rails,

so as to grasp or gripe them firmly; so, while the wheel of a carriage may be running over those parts of the bearing-surfaces of the rails which are above the chair, it will force the rails downward upon the jaws, so as to cause suoli jaws, through the action of their wedges,

to be drawn together and closely upon the THOMAS WHITTEMORE.

y Vitnesses:

R. H. EDDY, E. P. HALE, Jr. 

